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The ‘Sift’ strategy: A four-step method for spotting misinformation

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By Amanda Ruggeri

Pioneered by digital literacy experts, the “Sift” strategy is a technique for spotting fake news and misleading social media posts, says Amanda Ruggeri.

It’s no secret that misinformation is rampant on social media. And it’s even more so in some subjects than others. Research has found, for example, that around two-thirds of the most popular YouTube videos on vaccines contain misinformation. The fall-out can be dire: an uptick in inaccurate anti-vaccination content online correlates with a decline in vaccination coverage, especially among children. That has led to larger outbreaks of potentially deadly diseases, like measles, than have been seen in recent years.

“Misinformation is worse than an epidemic,” Marcia McNutt, president of the US National Academy of Sciences, put it in 2021, implicitly referring to the Covid-19 pandemic. “It spreads at the speed of light throughout the globe and can prove deadly when it reinforces misplaced personal bias against all trustworthy evidence.”

HOW NOT TO BE MANIPULATED

In today’s onslaught of overwhelming information (and misinformation), it can be difficult to know who to trust. In this column, Amanda Ruggeri explores smart, thoughtful ways to navigate the noise. Drawing on insights from psychology, social science and media literacy, it offers practical advice, new ideas and evidence-based solutions for how to be a wiser, more discerning critical thinker.

There are many reasons why misinformation travels so quickly – according to some research, even faster than accurate information. One reason is that people are far more likely to share a claim when it confirms their pre-existing beliefs, regardless of its accuracy. This cognitive bias may help explain why even more misinformation seems to be shared by individuals than by bots. One study, for example, found that just 15% of news sharers spread up to 40% of fake news.

That’s a sobering statistic, but there’s an upside. As long as individuals are the ones responsible for sharing so much misinformation, we’re also the ones who – by being more mindful of what we “like”, share, and amplify – can help make the greatest change.

When it comes to not falling for misinformation, being aware of our human fallibilities, such as our quickness to believe what we want to believe, is a good first step. Research shows that even being more reflective in general can “inoculate” us against believing fake news.

But it’s not the only thing that we can do. In particular, researchers have found there are several simple, concrete strategies that we all can (and should) use, especially before we’re tempted to share or repeat a claim, to verify its accuracy first.

One of my favourites comes with a nifty acronym: the Sift method. Pioneered by digital literacy expert Mike Caulfield, it breaks down into four easy-to-remember steps.

Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images STOP: Take a moment before you hit 'share' (Credit: Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images)Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images
STOP: Take a moment before you hit ‘share’ (Credit: Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images)

1. S is for… Stop

Perhaps one of the most pernicious aspects of the modern era is its urgency. Thanks to everything from our continual phone use to nonstop work demands, far too many of us seem to be navigating the world at a dizzying speed.

Being online, where both news cycles and content are especially fast-paced and often emotive, can put us in a particularly “urgent” mindset. But when it comes to identifying misinformation, immediacy is not our friend. Research has found that relying on our immediate “gut” reactions is more likely to lead us astray than if we take a moment to stop and reflect.

The first step of the Sift method interrupts this tendency. Stop. Don’t share the post. Don’t comment on it. And move on to the next step.

Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images INVESTIGATE: Look deeper into the source (Credit: Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images)Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images
INVESTIGATE: Look deeper into the source (Credit: Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images)

2. I is for… Investigate the source

Posts show up in our social media feeds all the time without us having a clear sense of who created them. Maybe they were shared by a friend. Maybe they were pushed to us by the algorithm. Maybe we followed the creator intentionally, but never looked into their background.

Now’s the time to find this out. Who created this post? Get off-platform and do a web search. And because search results can be misleading, make sure you’re looking at a reputable website. One that fact-checkers often use as a first port of call might surprise you: Wikipedia. While it’s not perfect, it has the benefit of being crowd-sourced, which means that its articles about specific well-known people or organisations often cover aspects like controversies and political biases.

While you’re investigating, ask:

  • If the creator is a media outlet, are they reputable and respected, with a recognised commitment to verified, independent journalism?
  • If it’s an individual, what expertise do they have in the subject at hand (if any)? What financial ties, political leanings or personal biases may be at play?
  • If it’s an organisation or a business, what is their purpose? What do they advocate for, or sell? Where does their funding come from? What political leanings have they shown?

And finally, once you’ve run your analysis (which can take just a couple of minutes), the most telling question of all: Would you still trust this creator’s expertise in this subject if they were saying something you disagreed with?

Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images FIND: Seek out better coverage (Credit: Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images)Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images
FIND: Seek out better coverage (Credit: Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images)

 

3. F is for… Find better coverage

If, from the previous step, you find that you still have questions about the source’s credibility, now’s the time to dig a little further. What you’re looking for is whether a more trustworthy source, like a reputable news outlet or fact-checking service, has reported and verified the same claim.

No surprise, but I find Google has some of the best tools for doing this. Obviously, there’s Google itself, and if you’re specifically looking to see if news outlets have covered something, Google News.

But I sometimes prefer to use the Google Fact Check search engine, which searches just fact-checking sites, specifically. Just keep in mind that Google says it doesn’t vet the fact-checking sites it includes, so to make sure your results are reputable, you’ll need to do a little further sleuthing – I like to see if an outlet has signed up to Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network, which you can check here.

If it’s a photo you’re investigating, use a reverse image search tool to see where else the image comes up online. Google has one, but I also like TinEye and Yandex. (You can also use these for video: take a screenshot from the video and put that in for your image search).

Your goal? To see whether there are any credible sources reporting the same information as what you’re seeing, and saying that it’s verified.

Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images TRACE: Find the original context (Credit: Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images)Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images
TRACE: Find the original context (Credit: Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images)

4. T is for… Trace the claim to its original context

Often, you’ll wind up doing this at the same time that you’re trying to find better coverage, at least if you’re using the tools mentioned above. But the idea here is a little different. You’re trying to find out where the claim came from originally.

Even if you see that a claim has been reported on by a credible media outlet, for example, it may not be original reporting; they may have gotten that claim from another outlet. Ideally, the original story should be linked – so always go there – but if it’s not, you may need to search for it separately.

Crucially, you want to figure out not just whether something like this really is true, but whether anything was taken out of context. If you’re looking at an image, does how it was described in the social media post you saw line up with what its original caption, context, and location? If it’s a quotation from a speaker, was anything edited out or taken out of context or, when you see their full interview or speech, does it seem like perhaps they misspoke in that moment?

Taking these steps before deciding whether to simply share a claim might feel onerous. But the time investment of just a few minutes may save you not only embarrassment – but help ensure you’re not spreading misinformation that, at its most dramatic, can even lead to illness and death.

Today, anyone can make a claim on social media. And anyone can be the person whose re-sharing of that claim is the one who makes it go viral. That means it’s the responsibility of each one of us to make sure that what we are posting, liking, and sharing is, first and foremost, actually true.

Feature Image Credit: Javier Hirschfeld/Getty Images

By Amanda Ruggeri

Amanda Ruggeri is an award-winning science and features journalist. She posts about expertise, media literacy and more on Instagram at @mandyruggeri.

Sourced from BBC

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Google’s Universal Analytics sunsets in 51 days & cookies are crumbling: how to prepare

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By Mike Froggatt

According to Gartner research, just over a quarter of all marketing budgets go toward paid media, with 56% of that spent on digital channels. Proving return on ad spend is already difficult for digital marketing leaders, and changes to cookies and walled gardens strengthening their own walls will make it even more challenging.

Third-party cookie data fuelled two decades of digital media and data-driven performance advertising. It’s no wonder cookie deprecation and restrictions on third-party data are transforming the way marketers target, buy and measure digital media.

In addition to the immediate impacts of cookie loss, the increased regulatory pressures on walled gardens is creating an environment of more black box algorithms and fewer data points with which to measure and independently verify results. Of the three privacy scenarios proposed by my colleague Andrew Frank, we are quickly moving to a walled garden world. And the biggest among them, Google, is at the front of the pack.

Aside from the (continually delayed) deprecation of the cookie, Google has another fast-approaching deadline that will impact almost every marketer with a website: the sunsetting of Universal Analytics.

As my colleague Lizzy Foo Kune shared with The Drum last year, the migration to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) entails an urgent overhaul to long-standing marketing data collection, measurement baselines and operational approaches — and deeper ties to Google’s ad ecosystem. GA4 highlights the data usage and consent gaps between acquisition-oriented advertising and retention-and-growth marketing but provides bridging mechanisms such as lookalike modelling, retargeting, pathing and attribution.

Digital advertising is vital for the success of modern brands, for driving both top-of-funnel awareness and bottom-of-funnel consideration and sales. Key to their success is access to data about their prospects’ and customers’ online behaviour, which helps marketers target and personalize their campaign efforts. Regulations on the collection and sharing of consumer data is prompting major data providers and adtech alike to change how their platforms collect, store and share this data with advertisers.

To maintain their digital media effectiveness, marketers need to build resilience and evaluate existing digital partners for cookie and walled garden alternatives.

Build a cookieless and walled garden risk profile

Purchasing display ads indirectly indicates a high reliance on third-party cookies. Brands with campaigns that rely heavily on indirect impressions could be highly susceptible to disruption from additional privacy changes from walled gardens and limits on third-party tracking from regulatory bodies.

Brands should ensure that their website and digital media campaigns – and the data collected and used to target ads – are both privacy compliant and effective in the face of those challenges by:

  • Owning, assigning someone on the team or finding a trusted partner to keep up with the latest news on privacy changes, cookies and third-party data regulation and their impact on the brand’s business.
  • Building first-party data assets by homing in on core customers and building direct-buying relationships with strategically important media partners.
  • Working across the organization to ensure compliance across user data collection and digital media activation.
  • Partnering with media companies, as well as established and emerging technology firms, to test novel targeting strategies (e.g., Google’s Topics, contextual targeting, data clean rooms) that reduce the eventual impact of the loss of cookies on existing media strategies.

Once an organization understands how its digital media is purchased, either with an internal analysis or a report from its agency partners, determine the risk exposure to the company’s marketing programs. Privacy changes and cookie deprecation’s impact on advertising depend on two factors: sales strategy (direct or third-party sales) and media strategy (brand versus performance marketing).

Risk assessment chart from Gartner

Source: Gartner (May 2023)

Sales strategy and the proximity to the final sale are indicative of the relationship with the customer, including the receiving consent to use their data for retargeting and other conversion-oriented digital advertising tactics. Media strategy indicates the number of existing relationships brands have with their target audiences to deploy in a privacy-safe way and their reliance on advertising partners.

Limit exposure to changes in the long run

After determining the organization’s cookie risk profile and building overall resilience to disruption, follow some of these next steps, tailored for each profile, to limit exposure to changes:

  • Conversion-seeking brands should focus on the core value of their products to consumers and continue to build upon that niche in addition to investing in performance media partners. Work on increasing the loyalty of existing customers and growing through the network effects of word-of-mouth on social media and outside of digital.
  • Legacy wholesale brands should maintain mind share through their broad brand advertising strategies while leveraging emerging channels like retail media networks. These channels can help fill any potential gaps in performance advertising left by changes to walled gardens and third-party data.
  • Direct-to-consumer and mono-brand retail brands should leverage their consent-based first-party data and close relationships with customers to focus their ad spend across trusted sites and apps. With Universal Analytics’ sunset imminent, it is imperative for digital marketing leaders to start collecting data with both UA and GA4 now in order to test for data compatibility and source appropriate alternatives for signal loss.
  • Platform and multichannel retail brands must continue to innovate on their existing sites, apps and product suite to stay at the forefront of customer needs. If the brand is a Google Analytics site, it’s important to prepare for fewer granular data points on site visitors in exchange for more targeting options within the Google media properties. In addition, work with marketing technology providers to expand revenue opportunities by leveraging audience and conversion data for brands in high-risk, legacy and direct profiles.

Mike Froggatt is senior director, analyst in Gartner’s marketing practice. To read more from The Drum’s latest Deep Dive, where we’ll be demystifying data & privacy for marketers in 2023, head over to our special hub.

Feature Image Credit: Myriam Jessier

By Mike Froggatt

Mike Froggatt is senior director, analyst in Gartner’s marketing practice. To read more from The Drum’s latest Deep Dive, where we’ll be demystifying data & privacy for marketers in 2023, head over to our special hub.

Sourced from The Drum

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Out-and-out out-of-home: 5 campaigns that used OOH as a perfect PR play

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By Emma Grace

Out-of-home (OOH) is often considered a paid media buy with ad agency-led creative. However, for PR agencies OOH is just another channel we can leverage to start a wider earned conversation around a campaign.

Creative OOH has long been a tool in the PR armoury. It’s like a comfy pair of slippers. We know they have been used to death, but we still pull them out.

OOH is a (comparatively) economical method of implying the bravery, scale & intent of an advertising campaign, without having to buy all the media spots. If done well (and some are not), one OOH media buy alone can be enough: the tenacious publicist and social media team will do the rest.

Captured with a bit of creativity (ideally some interaction from a blindsided passer-by i.e. someone from the office), the assets can then be used in paid, earned, shared and owned channels.

The average Joe doesn’t know that it was just one OOH site on a residential street that cost very little.

The PR filter

Creative OOH with a success metric of ‘talkability’ needs to be run through a PR filter. Is it meaningful to the consumer? Is it provocative? Does it add to a cultural conversation (or respond to the news agenda)?

There are two or three examples a year that really get the ‘I wish I thought of that’ respect of the industry. The first ones that came to my mind were a few years old, which goes to show their memorability (and the fact that their iconic status hasn’t yet been surpassed).

If PR-led OOH campaigns were Spice Girls, they would be…

1. Interactive Spice

These are the OOH activations that invite the audience to participate.

PrettyGreen once worked on a campaign to amplify billboard-size peelable cards for 10 free Nando’s meals. The promise of free Nando’s got many fans up ladders, peeling off the giant velcro vouchers Free Nando’s is news, as were the fans up the ladders.

Nandos large novelty loyalty card

In a similar vein, Carlsberg’s ‘Probably the best poster in the world’ included a beer tap for free drinks. Mr Kipling’s ‘Better with cake’, an OOH campaign made of cake – respect to that production team.

2. Provocateur Spice

Think Relate’s wonderful ‘Joy of Later Life Sex’ campaign. Rankin’s shouldn’t-be-taboo-but-totally-were-images of older people getting it on were daring, beautiful and stopped people in their tracks when displayed on giant billboards.

Rankin

Similarly, Muslim dating app Muzmatch saw Birmingham Bachelor Muhammad Malik use billboards to seemingly “save me from an arranged marriage”. Media interest was huge, because it was seemingly an authentic story which tapped into a cultural insight – of course, it was later revealed as a PR stunt for the app.

3. Activist Spice

These are OOH activations used by brands to convey a punchy opinion. Nothing does that better than making it a big shouty 48 sheet billboard.

Brewdog is a dab hand; the latest Qatar World Cup shaming ad is a recent example which has since drawn criticism for being inauthentic, but the initial interest was there and their opinion adequately spikey.

BrewDog World Cup

Similarly, ‘Wave of Waste’ from Corona x Parley For The Ocean has its place in the OOH hall of fame. The 3D installation was a work of art and a sobering image of a surfer surrounded by plastic, showing Corona’s commitment to the marine pollution cause.

4. Newsjacker Spice

These are the campaigns that know exactly what is on the news agenda and respond accordingly. We have not been short on these this year.

Butterkist’s ‘Here for the Drama’, complete with a large demonstration outside 10 Downing Street during the Partygate controversy was low-fi and so on the money it got talked about.

Likewise, Burger King’s ‘Turns out there are too many Whoppers’ and Quorn’s ‘No more porkies’ when Boris Johnson resigned. The media are desperate for content to endlessly talk around big news moments; these activations delivered.

Quorn

5. Brand-led but gets away with it Spice

There aren’t many brands in this category: they demand consumer attention because of brand affection.

Marmite Dynamite fits in here: a Marmite lid smashed through a car window to launch the new chilli variant. The interaction of the product and its surroundings was funny, but not all brands would have garnered the same attention with the same activation. Marmite has done the hard yards to gain brand love. As it turns out, PR-led OOH is actually quite a science.

Can’t wait to see the next one.

By Emma Grace

Managing Director: PrettyGreen An Independent, Award Winning Agency for PR Less Ordinary ​

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Sourced from The Drum

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Ecommerce is at a nascent stage and I welcome new players entering the sector: Amazon’s Manish Tiwary

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By Delshad Irani

The global ecommerce juggernaut’s VP and country manager for India, Manish Tiwary, on how Amazon plans to unlock growth.

“As we move towards this goal of the $5 trillion economy, I think we have a few things which make me personally very optimistic. One is the age profile, the income profile and, more importantly, the spirit of entrepreneurship and the resilience which all of us, as consumers and as professionals, have,” says Amazon’s Manish Tiwary

“We spent over nine years here. Internally we always say it’s still Day Zero because we have hardly scratched the surface.” Manish Tiwary, who is the country manager and vice president of Consumer Business at Amazon India, shares his views on the India market, old and new competition, and emerging disruptive trends redefining how consumers shop on the Internet.

Edited excerpts.

What is your view on this festive season or Fifth Quarter, as it’s informally known, and the Indian market in the next few months?

The last few years have been very difficult for everyone personally, professionally and on the income front. In some ways this festive season will unlock our next level of customers and consumption and that’s how we are looking at it. In Amazon, we have a saying: Focus on the input. You can’t control the output. That’s what we’re focused on.

At this stage, the country is sort of leapfrogging and in every way – you look at the digitization, the payment industry, the startup culture, the digital culture. As we move towards this goal of the $5 trillion economy, I think we have a few things which make me personally very optimistic. One is the age profile, the income profile and, more importantly, the spirit of entrepreneurship and the resilience which all of us as consumers and as professionals have.

What is the next big thing coming down the line for the ecommerce Industry? What do you have your eyes on?

To tell you the truth, I think a lot has been spoken about e-commerce but it’s still a very small sector. It will likely be 2-3 percent of the overall retail industry. We spent over nine years here, internally we always say it’s still day zero because we have hardly scratched the surface. We have 100 million plus customers, suppliers all over, but a lot more needs to be done. And I think that’s where our focus is at the customer front.

We are trying very hard to create an experience which will appeal to our customers, which is shopping in regional languages, voice shopping, visual shopping, making the entire services like pay on delivery, enabling every time you deliver not only a box, but the related services around it. So that’s been a focus as far as the customer journey is concerned.

How do you reach out to the next 100 million?

We feel good about the progress we are making. We often speak about the three things which matter: selection, pricing and convenience. While we feel good about the fact that we have 12 crore plus products, there are such good manufacturers and producers of unique products across the country. Again, there also we just scratched the surface. So we’re driving a lot of initiatives like local shops on Amazon, digital kendras to get people online.

I think the customer flywheel and the seller flywheel is one flywheel as you get more selection and more and more customers come – so that’s where I think we feel humbled by the progress we’ve made in the first nine years. But there’s a long way to go and that’s what the focus is on – the next 100 million customers and the next lot of sellers.

You mentioned voice and visual shopping. There’s live commerce, influencer-led commerce and social commerce, which is also leading the charge. And there are old players and new, younger and aggressive players. So what else will we see coming up in terms of how Amazon will capture more of that growth away from its competition?

The industry right now is at a really nascent stage and therefore I do welcome new players entering the sector. Innovation is what will drive growth. That is what has happened over the last decade or so. And that is what is going to happen.

We’ve anchored ourselves around some areas which we believe we can sustainably make a difference to the customer. The first one which is very important is we provide an ecosystem of services. It’s not just about shopping. Think of a Prime member who can experience the best content in terms of Prime video, the best reading in terms of Kindle and the best music in terms of Amazon music, and the best payment options in terms of the identical branded credit card and of course shopping sitting at the base of it. So I think our intent has always been to delight our customers by making this ecosystem of services. We are very focused on that and what differentiated us.

The second one, which we believe we are quite good at, is how we leverage technology. Alexa is something which Amazon has invested heavily in and today it works in several local languages. We worked quite hard to integrate some of these new services into a normal flywheel of shopping and selling. And we believe we have that expertise.

Similarly, if we look at machine learning which is critical as you reach out the next 100 million. People would want far more personalized services. So the way you will see your Amazon homepage will be different from others and AI and machine learning is at the heart of how to achieve this. And finally, in order to make an impact we always talk about the fact that our vision is to change the way India buys and sells. We have to take every ecosystem partner and that’s how you can actually make an impact.

This entire thought of leveraging the ecosystem is something which is very powerful. So as we go through the next decade, we will continue to anchor around customers and around leveraging that ecosystem for them. Technology which will be at the heart of what we do and working with the ecosystem of stores, suppliers and manufacturers.

By Delshad Irani

Sourced from Storyboard 18

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The future of digital marketing isn’t what you think: 5 trends

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By Stas Pamintuan

The landscape of digital marketing solutions changes so frequently that it’s almost impossible to imagine its future. For entrepreneurs and businesses, it’s become even more of an opportunity to gain a competitive edge in the market. Stas Pamintuan of agency Digital Ethos looks into this future, looks at five trends every marketer should keep abreast of.

As many companies transitioned to remote work throughout the pandemic, digital marketing became essential to most businesses’ survival.

This is still the case, as many have stayed remote or moved toward hybrid working. Fast-growing means ever-changing and evolving, so in order to venture into the future of digital marketing, keeping with the times is essential for adaptation to your target market’s wants and needs.

1. Expanded reach in generation Z

As generation Z starts to mature, businesses must reconsider their marketing strategies. That generation wants memorable experiences, and digital marketing solutions have to be more precise in their purpose.

One way to do this might is leveraging user-generated content to create a sense of exclusivity for your product or service. This will make it something they can relate to and more likely to side with, especially if they have FOMO.

2. Omnichannel and integrated approach

As consumers become more aware of what they want, market expectations have become more specific. This is evident on digital platforms and channels. It’s even more important in the way you market to your target audience. Whether that’s through social channels, PR or content, there are plenty of opportunities to maintain a unified omnipresence.

A unified omnichannel marketing strategy enables you to create an irresistible online presence for your brand – collectively, that’s the goal of digital marketing.

3. Personalization

Make sure your campaigns are personalized. While it’s obvious that most consumers value privacy, they also favour personalization. You can see this in appreciation for tailor-made Spotify playlists and Netflix recommendations.

Each element of the campaign is essential, allowing you to deliver value via storytelling. Personalized campaigns see higher rates of engagement, conversions and reviews from customers. The first step in obtaining this data is allowing customers to opt-in for data tracking and analysis, so they are aware of how their data is being used, before analysing it.

4. Micro-influencer marketing

Influencer marketing has hugely grown in recent years, with top influencers on Instagram, YouTube and Twitter attracting millions of followers and making a decent income from brand deals. While this offers great ROI compared to traditional advertising channels, there are still some issues.

From fake followers to big-name influencers losing their power as they take on more and more sponsored posts, consumers perceptions of authenticity (and the relevance of influencers’ recommendations) can be affected. As consumers continue to value individual recommendations over being marketed at, it makes sense to invest in micro-influencers – social media users who have a smaller but dedicated audience who are trusted to deliver authentic content. Influencers’ power will be measured not by the number of followers they have, but by their personal relationships with their followers.

5. Video to overtake digital channels

Savvy marketers have recognized the power of using online video in their digital marketing solutions for years. We’re not quite at the peak yet, but video is proving itself as a powerful medium; we’ve seen a massive rise in live streaming video, especially over the last year or so.

From social media to SEO, digital marketing continues to impact billions of people. And with more advanced tools and changes in best practices, digital marketing solutions will continue to propel businesses to step up their competitive drive in the market. That’s the beauty of this space. It’s about adapting and delivering tailor-made marketing strategies to keep your online presence flowing.

By Stas Pamintuan

Sourced from The Drum

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Twitter to label all state-affiliated Russia media

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By Samuel Benson

The latest steps come as Russian disinformation spreads.

Twitter will begin labelling content from Russian state-affiliated media websites, the company announced Monday, amid a flood of Russian-backed disinformation related to the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The company began labelling and de-amplifying official Russian media accounts in 2020, Twitter said. The additional action announced on Monday applies to individual Twitter accounts that share links from those state-affiliated sites.

“Since the invasion, we’ve seen more than 45,000 Tweets a day from individuals on Twitter sharing these links — meaning that now the overwhelming majority of content from state-affiliated media is coming from individuals sharing this content, rather than accounts we’ve been labelling for years as state-affiliated media,” Twitter spokesperson Elizabeth Busby told POLITICO in an email.

Twitter maintains a continually updated list of media organizations belonging to the Russian Federation and 20 other countries, and the new label will automatically apply to any tweeted URLs from a designated state-affiliated media website.

The social media company also announced it will continue to de-amplify articles from these websites by barring the URLs from the platform’s top search function. Twitter also will not “recommend” tweets that include articles from the sites.

The move comes after Russia used “false flag” operations to justify its invasion of Ukraine, including false information disseminated through social media to portray Ukraine as the aggressor. Last week, reports from state-affiliated Russian media falsely reported a Ukrainian civilian genocide, a claim that went “unchecked and unchallenged.” Similar Russian-backed falsehoods compiled millions of likes, comments and shares on Twitter and Facebook, a POLITICO review showed.

Twitter blocked advertisements from all accounts owned by Russia Today and Sputnik in 2017. In 2019, the company banned all state-backed media advertising and political advertising.

Feature Image Credit: The company began labelling and de-amplifying official Russian media accounts in 2020, Twitter said. | Matt Rourke/AP photo, file

By Samuel Benson

Sourced from POLITICO

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Partner marketing: how to collaborate for a win-win-win scenario

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By Phil Jones

Partnerships can be an excellent way to expand reach, spread the load and create a more collaborative coordinated marketing approach. The Marketing Practice’s head of inside sales and data strategy Phil Jones interviews its client ServiceNow to find out how it views partnerships, and offers tips on how to cultivate a successful mutually-beneficial relationship.

When it comes to B2B routes to market in the technology sector, ‘two’s company, three’s a crowd’ couldn’t be further from the truth. Partnering up with other organizations makes sense for vendors, partner organizations and clients alike. Vendor organizations can increase revenue and market penetration and strengthen client relationships. Organizations that fall into the ‘partner’ category – which covers anything from distributors and resellers to systems integrators and consultancy firms – can offer clients a broader range of sophisticated propositions. And clients often receive a more bespoke, integrated response to the problem they’re looking to solve.

That’s not to say it’s easy. It can be challenging to coordinate teams and offerings within a global multinational – add a partner or three into the mix, and the complexity increases accordingly. So I asked Carl Shanahan, senior manager of the technology partner program at ServiceNow, to share his tips on creating and managing partnerships that add value to all parties.

How do you decide which partners you need?

The customer’s always right. So, if your customer is coming to you saying I want to use your product, and I also want to use your competitor’s product, you have to figure out with partners how you do that. The partner’s job is to fill the areas that either your technology doesn’t do, your salespeople don’t cover, your services don’t provide or a vertical market in which you don’t know how to walk and talk.

Equally, you might spot a market opportunity that means you actively seek certain partners; or there may be a strategic account that you can’t crack alone.

What should the starting point be for a successful partnership?

Successful partnership programs are focused on solving the customer’s biggest business challenges. They require strong cross-functional collaboration across technology, marketing and sales teams. Start building your partnership by identifying the value that you will each get out of it – which new routes to revenue does the partnership open, and what further opportunities might appear as the partnership develops?

Looking for ways to optimize the partner experience and add value should be an ‘always-on’ activity. So I look at all three steps in the partnership – technical, marketing and sales – to determine where they are getting stuck, make the program more accessible for them, and make it easier for them to raise their hand and get help.

How do you align objectives?

Focus on building your offering around customer challenges. A big part is really hooking into the conversation with the partner about how they grow and expand their revenue as a company. What markets or new business opportunities can we open for them? How can your partnership open up new routes to revenue and reduce time to value?

A long-term partner of ours had customers coming to them asking for software apps and integrations. At that time, they offered implementation and wraparound services only, but we worked with them to help them develop a technology offering too. In less than a year, we’ve been able to open up a new line of business for them: now they can sell customers a great application with a services model, set it up for them, customize it as required and provide ongoing support.

How do you take a joint offering to market?

Keep it simple. Limit your plan to a page with two or three goals that you decide on together. These goals can include entering a new market, targeting specific companies or growing your user base.

Focus on building your messaging and marketing where you’ve already had success, such as a particular industry or account. Sometimes partners can be resistant to a narrow focus on a few customers or markets. But that focus allows us to illustrate why customers need this proposition and, more importantly, the value the partner can offer, given its understanding of the market and the customer’s very specific business problem.

How can you anticipate and overcome challenges?

Different partners have different capabilities, offer different benefits and require different levels of support. Take the time to learn how each partner operates. Research how each partner makes money, what the sales process looks like and what training or support they might need.

The people element often gets overlooked. Yes, you want to make it easy for partners to self-serve, but if partners don’t have a support system to reach out to, they will quickly become frustrated with the process and move on. In addition, since partners are often selling dozens of other products (some of which may be your competitors), you need to be proactive in understanding how you can support each partner to add value to its customers and progress joint opportunities.

How do you get sales teams onboard?

Make sure sales understand the value of working with partners. Train your sales teams to identify opportunities to bring in partners to enhance each other’s portfolios, drive bigger, more strategic deals, and help them close more sales. Share stories of how the partners are helping customers realize the value of company solutions. For example, partners can provide valuable customer feedback helping to shape product roadmaps, increase speed to market and test new propositions contributing to the overall solution development.

By Phil Jones

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Social influencers can make – or break – a company’s reputation

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When Nathan Apodaca posted a TikTok video that showed him longboarding while drinking Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry juice and singing along to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” it was simply a spur-of-the-moment frolic.

Ordinarily, those kinds of videos blend in with the millions of others that crop up on social media. But this one caught fire, eventually pulling more than 80 million views and nearly 13 million likes.

“It struck a chord,” Chris Ferzli, Ocean Spray’s director of global corporate affairs, said in a 2020 interview with CNBC. That “chord” fueled a massive sales increase for the  Massachusetts-based company.

Apodaca is one of many social influencers who earn money or perks by influencing the buying habits of consumers. In Apadaca’s case, Ocean Spray gifted him a new truck and sent him and his fiance on a paid honeyoon.

But it didn’t end there. Money also poured in from online viewers who learned he’d been living in an RV. He used the money to buy a $320,000, five-bedroom, three-bathroom home in Idaho for his family.

That was clearly a win-win for both sides.

The flipside

But the impact of social influencers can cut both ways, according to Doug Bania, an intellectual property valuation and defamation-damages expert with Nevium.

“They need to be aware that when social influencers engage in bad behavior that makes the front pages, the company can quickly lose face with customers and lose money,” he said. “A brand that took years to build can be ruined.”

Such was the case with Jared Fogel, the once famous pitchman for the Subway sandwich chain.

After attributing significant weight loss to eating Subway sandwiches, Fogle appeared in the company’s advertising campaigns from 2000 to 2015, doing numerous TV ads and in-store appearances to promote the company’s prodcuts.

The partnership abruptly collapsed when he was convicted for traveling to pay for sex with minors and for possessing child pornography. He was ultimately sentenced to more than 15 years in prison.

Needless to say, Subway’s reputation took a hit.

Willing to take the gamble

Still, a growing number of companies are willing to take the gamble. In fact, the influencer marketing industry is predicted to grow by as much as $10 billion over the next five years.

“It’s become very common,” Bania said. “Companies are realizing that social influencers have very large followings on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and other other platforms. It’s a big audience.”

When businesses weigh the cost of shifting some of their advertising dollars away from traditional marketing channels into less costly social media advertising, the strategy often makes sense, Bania said.

“The other thing about social media is that you can be very audience-specific,” he said. “It can go right to your target market.”

Bania expects the Federal Trade Commission will impose more guidelines in the coming years regarding social media advertising, as well as punishments if those guidelines aren’t followed.

“It can be very risky when you connect your brand with somebody’s personality because we’re all humans,” Bania cautioned. “Some people do good things and some people do bad things, so it’s a risk. The hard thing to determine is if the risk is worth the potential reward.”

It’s all part of what has become known as the “Attention Economy.” Consumers are giving more time and attention to social media platforms, and brands want to be where the attention is.

Bania put it simply:

“You may be older brand,” he said, “but how do you tap into a younger, hip crowd?”

Feature Image Credit: Nathan Apodaca’s TikTok video that showed him longboarding and drinking Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry juice, fueled a heavy sales boost for Ocean Spray. (AP photo) 

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The future of marketing is building a privacy-safe world

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By Benjamin Poole

“Privacy regulations, e-commerce integration, customer data platforms, and better ROI optimization enabled by smarter marketing analytics” will be some of the leading trends going forward, according to Ben Poole, head of office of Singapore-based data company Fifty-Five.

Brands are finding themselves in very uncertain business environments, as there is a move towards the post-pandemic new normal. As already experienced, the decisions being made today will chart the journey to the future of digital marketing, and impact long-term successes. Here are some trends that will impact the digital marketing landscape of the present and the future.

Consumer data privacy will reshape digital marketing

Cookies and other available trackers will continue to be compromised by the ‘triple cookie restriction’: legal (GDPR, PDPA); technical (browsers and operating systems); and behavioural (ad blockers and cookie notice blockers). Consumer data privacy is a key concern for regulators and consumers alike, as more turn to online services and platforms to fulfil day-to-day functions. Data privacy regulations are fast evolving in Southeast Asia. For example, Singapore and Thailand have already implemented PDPA (personal data protection act) regulations that comprise requirements governing the collection, use, and care of personal data which protects consumer data privacy.

In 2022 and beyond, countries in Southeast Asia are expected to seek tougher approaches to data regulations. These data privacy enhancements are already leading to a major shift across advertising platforms to develop consent-based solutions. Meanwhile, the ‘walled gardens’ such as social platforms like Google, Facebook, and e-commerce like Lazada will seek to strengthen their hand with first-party data, while the rest of the open web will come to rely more and more on contextually driven targeting solutions.

With the increasing shift to first-party data and modelization, media measurement and activation teams will increasingly employ data compliance experts and data scientists to ensure data safety, data quality, and data actionability. The securing of data, renewal of measurement and targeting approaches, and deployment of a ‘watch-and-innovate’ mindset will become ever more important in 2022.

Ecommerce will change how brands organize themselves and their data

The pandemic has accelerated Southeast Asia’s digital commerce transformation. By the end of 2021, there will be 350 million digital consumers in this region, of which almost 80% of consumers will have gone digital, according to Facebook’s Annual Digital Consumer Report.

In 2022 and beyond, many digital habits learned in the last few months will persist, including e-commerce and grocery shopping – which have seen the most profound change with almost half of all digital consumers in Southeast Asia now shopping online for daily necessities.

The divergence of media investments across digital platforms (Google, Facebook, TikTok) and marketplaces (Lazada, Shopee, Amazon, Tokopedia), has led to increased data and organizational silos, creating challenges around accurately measuring and optimizing digital marketing budgets.

Brands will reorganize to integrate digital media and e-commerce teams while rethinking their data architecture to take into account this increased investment into new e-retail platforms.

The future will be about a unified customer view

As Southeast Asia continues to see a transformation in online user behaviour and digital commerce, marketing investments have diversified across various platforms, leading to data silos that prevent digital marketers from seeing a complete view of customers and their buying journeys.

The customer data platform (CDP) promises to reconcile all channels’ first-party data in a privacy-compliant manner. The CDP creates a more complete view of each customer by capturing data from multiple systems, linking information related to the same customer, and storing the information to track behaviour over time. It contains personal identifiers used to target marketing messages and track individual-level marketing results.

The real question then would be: will all marketers need a CDP? Not necessarily, as there are currently more than 10 technologies such as Google Cloud Platform, that have features that overlap with a CDP existing in the market today that can achieve similar results.

Therefore, when choosing to acquire a CDP, the marketer must first determine if they have access to a large amount of individual-level data to learn how to achieve a higher level of data granularity. Marketers should also consider whether they have the in-house skills necessary to deploy a CDP, whether that be an IT team or knowledgeable marketing technologist.

Evolving shape of brand engagement backed by digital analytics

The future of digital marketing analytics technology is bright. New and improved tech such as Google Analytics 4 will represent a new paradigm in digital analytics. Digital marketers will look forward to more in-depth marketing analytics and e-commerce reports, which will provide the opportunity to create enriched customer journeys that are multi-screen and multi-device.

Expect to see cross-platform material benefits (consistent metrics and dimensions, for integrated reporting across web and app); flexible and efficient (faster event modelling for more granular and flexible analysis); more visual (ad-hoc analysis and improved data visualization for a deeper understanding of your users); more intelligent (machine learning capabilities that automatically surface insights, anomalies and predictions).

A new era in digital marketing beckons, driven by evolving data privacy, emerging consumer behaviours, and technology solutions that will help the modern marketer craft privacy safe, superior customer experiences – all driven by data. The securing of compliant data, the design of new media measurement and activation methods, and keeping a ‘watch-and-innovate’ mindset towards regulatory and platform privacy changes, will be key to succeeding in 2022 and beyond.

The future would be about unlocking the potential of these advanced analytics to give digital marketers more user-centric insights, with a much deeper understanding of individual customer journeys, and how to improve them for better business results.

By Benjamin Poole

Ben Poole is head of office of Singapore-based data company Fifty-Five.

Sourced from The Drum

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How can you effectively measure social media marketing?

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By Jenny Stanley,

Social media ROI is one of the most important key performance indicators (KPIs) in marketing. It is often expressed as a percentage. KPIs allow you to compare and contrast different marketing channels to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of each channel.

Unlike measurements such as likes or shares, which are specific to social media, you can easily compare the ROI of all your social networks to that of your search engine advertising or email campaigns. This is because analysing your ROI across various channels allows you to rationalize the impact of all your marketing efforts with one clear concise single measurement. This analysis helps you identify immediately which social networks are most profitable as well as cost-effective for your business.

How do you measure customer engagement on social media?

Engagement is often considered to be one of the most valuable metrics for measuring lead generation on social media. However, you need to consider a multitude of factors when it comes to customer engagement. For example, are you addressing the right audience, how will your audience interact with your brand, and what does your audience do to engage with your brand and spread your content? A large follower base and many quality posts mean nothing if users are not genuinely interested in what you are offering.

To measure engagement, you need to measure user reactions. The reality of modern social media is that people see a lot of news and fresh content every day. If a consumer is interested in a piece of content, they will take a moment to comment on or like a post. Customer engagement on social media is a one-time thing. In effect, it shows that the user is interested in your brand’s publication in a well-filled community.

Measuring customer engagement

Retweets, likes, bookmarks and time spent watching your stories or videos can be monitored in real-time. To do this, you need to use social analytics software and web tools. You can also measure customer engagement using a specific formula: customer engagement = (amount of interactions/reach of posts) x 100.

Measuring negative customer engagement

Negative feedback is another form of customer engagement. You can know how a customer feels about your company, even with a negative comment. By taking the time to express themselves, the consumer is in a way showing that they expect a correction, which in turn can improve their experience.

How to measure the success of social media marketing?

As stated above, KPIs help in your company’s decision-making process. There are a few indicators that will be discussed in turn below. Each indicator should be monitored according to the objectives you have set yourself. For ease, we will group them into four sub-categories.

Reach

The reach metric lets you know how far your content reaches in terms of audience. In other words, it is an indication of the number of people who have seen your publication once. However, using reach as a metric for success should be done with caution. This is because the reach metric is often an estimated figure. However, the benefit of this is that it allows you to quantify the size of your potential audience. For example, a reach of 10,000 means that 10,000 people will see your publication at least once in their news feed.

Impressions

The impressions metric should be distinguished from reach. It corresponds to the number of times your publication has appeared on the screen. This content can be seen several times by the same person. For example, if your reach is 1,000 as in the previous example and the number of impressions is 10,000, it could be assumed that users have seen the publication 10 times.

Mentions

Mentions are the number of times your content has been mentioned by a person or influencer. This is one way to reach more people. Being mentioned often can mean that your content is liked for its quality. For example, when a person or influencer mentions you in a post or shares your content, they use the @personname feature. You will receive a notification that they have mentioned you.

Community

This indicator corresponds to your number of subscribers. You can follow its evolution. Its increase or decrease should be closely observed as it is directly correlated to the quality of your content. This indicator also allows you to learn more about the profile of your community (for example, their gender, age or location).

To measure the reach of your posts, impressions, mentions and your community, you can use social media tools such as Facebook Insights, Instagram Insights and Twitter Analytics. Each platform has its specificities. For example, with LinkedIn Demographics, you can learn more about the professional characteristics of your site visitors. Facebook Insights will allow you to know the hours of activity of your community.

There are alternatives to the integrated tools for knowing the results of your actions on social networks. This is the case of tools such as Hootsuite or CX Social, to name but a few.

How do I optimize content for social media marketing?

Ensuring an effective presence on social networks is a marketing challenge for all companies. Global login statistics show that potential customers are online more than elsewhere. This means that companies need to get involved in digital, which is now at the heart of marketing strategies.

Methods for social media and optimizing your marketing strategy

While all companies are now present on social media, not all have the same results. Information with high added value for internet users is needed, but the publication medium plays an equally important role. Even when communicating about your products, the approach must be designed to arouse the curiosity of the user.

Adjusting your brand to your audience

On social networks, you must adjust to the sensitivities of your community, depending on the medium on which you are communicating. As a rule, long texts are not welcome. The preferred format on social networks is images and videos, which may explain the growing success of TikTok and Instagram Reels.

When should I post on social media?

The timing, frequency and target audience of each post should be carefully considered.

Some platforms help you to automate your communication on social networks. From one interface you can control all your social media pages, plan and schedule up-to-the-minute posts, and analyse your marketing strategy.

One of the main advantages of such a tool is of course the possibility to synchronize your posts on all social networks. In addition, you can track your audience in real-time to measure and analyse the reach of each action.

Communicating on social networks to make money is a more demanding and complicated process than you might think. Having innovative tools at your disposal to automate and professionalize this communication can only help the company to achieve its objectives.

Conclusion

In conclusion, when approaching your social media strategy, it’s important that when considering all of the factors mentioned above that they are always considered in light of your brand’s marketing KPIs to determine the success of your campaigns.

By Jenny Stanley,

Jenny Stanley is managing director at Appetite Creative.

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